| Everyone
seems to be up in arms over this global warming thing. I suppose there isn’t any
doubt that the Earth has been heating up these past several years, but personally
I think that we are going through a normal cycle, one that has repeated itself
year after year for thousands of years. This is my opinion and you can have yours,
but I’ll still think you are wrong and I’m right.
While temperatures do
seem to be warmer than they were when I was a kid, I can only think of one reason
why I may be more aware and that is I hear about it almost every day. When I was
a kid growing up in the fifties, who ever heard the weather forecast or paid any
attention to how hot it was outside? In my hometown, if you wanted the temperature
you had to call a number where they would give you the correct time and the current
temperature. I can’t recall doing this a lot, I was too busy playing or riding
a bicycle or something…. but not on the phone asking someone how hot it was. I
knew how hot it was by going outside. When it got so hot you couldn’t spit, you
knew it was time to find some shade. You drank a lot of water, there wasn’t anything
like an energy drink, and water was good for you. Heat was relative.
I
don’t think I had air conditioning until I was in high school. Our family had
attic fans. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this concept, an attic fan
was located in the ceiling of the hallway and sucked air in through all of the
open windows. At night you would scoot your bed over to the open window and let
that hot breeze wash right over you and put you to sleep. The monotonous whoomp-whoomp
of the fan blades in the hall were enough to knock anyone out like a light. Generally
you’d wake up about three in the morning shivering and freezing since the sheets
and the bed had gotten damp from the humidity and the breeze was still coming
in strong. You could always tell where someone had their bed placed even from
the outside of the house since that window screen would be the one most covered
in bugs. In arid areas they used a water cooler of ‘swamp’ fan that used water
flowing over straw to cool your house. The trick there was to talk into the fan
and hear your voice change. Remember this is before television and game boys so
you had to get your amusement from wherever you could find it.
There wasn’t
much concern over recycling since none of us had anything to recycle. You used
your shoes up and had them resoled when they wore out on the bottoms, the only
way you got a new pair was when you outgrew the others. Everyone got new shirts
and jeans for the start of the school year, but other than something from your
grandmother at Christmas, that was about the extent of your wardrobe planning.
Jeans and shirts for school, sport coat and slacks for church and a pair of dress
shoes, a pair of school shoes and a pair of play shoes and you were all set. What
kids spend on a pair of tennis shoes today would pay for your entire wardrobe
for a whole year. You’d go to Sears or ‘Monkey Wards’ a week before the start
of school and get everything in one fell swoop. Sears used to have an x-ray machine
in the shoe department where you could stick your feet (or hands or whatever)
in, press a button and see where your feet fit into your shoes. Google ‘shoe fluoroscope’
if you don’t believe me. No telling how many shoe salesmen got some form of illness
from being around all of that unprotected radiation everyday. Amazing that the
kids seemed to have survived as well.
No one had a clothes dryer, we had
clothes lines. Here’s a practice that we could bring back today and save some
energy, except most subdivision rules won’t allow you to have your clothes drying
on a line. Jumping into bed and smelling sheets that had been taken off the line
earlier in the day was an experience you would never forget. Sun dried sheets
are a treat our kids have not gotten to live through. We
lived through those years and came out fine. Our parents and grandparents lived
through harder times and did just fine as well. I always say that what doesn’t
kill you only makes you stronger.
© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com
Letters
From North America - August 26, 2009 column
Syndicated weekly
in 80 newspapers
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